(SOLD) This is a 1947 Parker 51 Vacumatic Demi fountain pen and mechanical pencil set in Cordovan Brown with a 16k gold-filled cap. The pen has been restored, which included a complete disassembly, a thorough cleaning, an overhaul of the filling mechanism, ink flow adjustment, a nib tune-up, and a gentle hand polish. The pencil has also been brought up to full mechanical order. I work according to current "best practices" in pen restoration and I use high-quality replacement components and specialized tools.

This is a very rare set! It's a "first-year" Parker 51 Vacumatic Demi, made in 1947, the year the Demi model was first introduced. It also features a rare, newly designed, 16k gold-filled cap and comes with a matching mechanical pencil. The Demi was Parker's attempt to market the 51 to women, who were quickly becoming a large presence in the workforce and a lucrative customer base. The phrase I wrote comes from a Parker 51 Demi ad, and it reflects the sentiment.

The Demi is slightly smaller and more spender than the full-size 51, but not by much. The pen posts beautifully, so it can still be enjoyed by men and women alike. Today, a restored 51 is as good an EDC pen as ever, offering its user comfort, reliability, good looks, and fantastic writing performance, day in and day out. The smooth, forgiving Extra-Fine nib makes it an ideal journaling pen, a great tool for learning and writing business cursive, or Michael Sull's American Cursive Handwriting. Even though Parker designed the 51 to write fairly dry, to meet the demands of the day, I like to tune it a bit of the wet side so you can enjoy that amazing gliding sensation but without flooding the paper with ink. The overhauled filling mechanism works efficiently and holds a lot of ink.

Parker 51 Vacumatic Demi Cordovan Brown Set, XF, capped

The set is in excellent cosmetic condition! There are no flaws or defects, just very faint wear to the body and a bit of wear on the pen's cap, toward the edge, all very difficult to see with the naked eye. Important: the slightly darker shade of brown toward the tip of the nib is supposed to be like that. The material is slightly transparent and there's simply more of it towards the tip, hence the darker area that you can see in a high-resolution photo.